Kieran McKenna frustrated as late penalty costs Ipswich

Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna believes the awarding of the added-time penalty that led to his team being denied victory at Stoke was “soft”.

Milan Smit converted from 12 yards after Cedric Kipre was penalised for pulling back Lamine Cisse in the box, meaning the promotion-chasing Tractor Boys had to settle for a 3-3 draw.

And McKenna could not hide his frustration at the decision given by referee Thomas Kirk.

“There’s nothing other than a devastated dressing room, a really frustrated dressing room,” he said.

“I’m really frustrated with our role in the last minute and the fact that we didn’t game manage and show the composure we needed.

“I’m really frustrated with the decision. For me, a really soft penalty. Of course, from an Ipswich persuasion, I don’t quite know the word for the irony – the level of contact Cedric’s put on a shoulder there compared to what happened in the 96th minute on Saturday (against Leicester) – that we’ve come on the wrong side of.

“So we’re really unhappy with how that’s panned out.”

First-half goals from Smit and Bae Jun-ho had put Stoke into a deserved 2-0 lead at half-time before an Eric Bocat own goal and strikes from Jack Taylor and substitute George Hirst saw Ipswich go 3-2 ahead with just eight minutes of normal time remaining.

McKenna was pleased with how his side responded after a disappointing display in the opening 45 minutes.

“There’s so many other ways to dissect the game,” he added.

“Of course, [there were] things in the first half that we didn’t do well enough, we didn’t handle well enough, we made a couple of mistakes.

“We hit the inside of the post to go [close to going] 1-0 up so it could have been really different, but we go into half-time in a difficult spot.

“The group showed outstanding character and quality in the second half.”

Stoke now have just one win from their last 11 league matches, but a valuable point sees them remain in 15th spot.

Boss Mark Robins was left to rue a disappointing second-half performance from his side, who had put themselves into a commanding position at the break.

“We spoke about doing the same things (in the second half) – making sure that we win the duels, win the headers, don’t have it so it’s a ‘game of two halves’ story – and straight away we come out, we turn our back (for the own goal),” he said.

“We miss tackles, we miss things. We get either ahead of the ball or in the wrong position and don’t recover properly.

“Pressure’s not on the ball quite where we needed it to be and sometimes you tire.

“Those are the circumstances that we’ve got at the moment – average age of 23 in the first half, by the way, so it was a young squad and I’m pleased.

“And I said to them at full-time, I don’t know what to say because part of me is really happy with a lot of that, apart from three moments of the game.”